Wednesday, February 8, 2012

In
Shared Inquiry™ discussions,
teachers often invite students to consider and respond to other
students’ by asking follow-up questions featuring the word agree. This is an extremely valuable practice.
It signals to all students that they should listen to one another and think
about the ideas being offered. Sometimes however students fall into the habit
of disagreeing just because what they hear a student say does not match their
interpretation of the story events.

Here
is an example from a discussion of the story "Thank You M'am" by
Langston Hughes:

Jason: I think Roger didn’t say “Thank you,
M’am” at the end because he was

so happy that Mrs.
Jones would be willing to give him money.

Leader: Delia, do you agree that Roger can’t
speak because he’s happy?

Delia: No, I disagree.

Leader: Why do you disagree?

Delia: At the end Roger’s lips were moving and
nothing was coming out because

he was so confused by
what she did.

In
this example, we simply do not know yet whether Jason’s and Delia’s
interpretations really differ. Because Delia’s key word is confused and Jason uses the word happy,
Delia assumes that the two ideas are contradictory. But it is possible
that after the leader probes with more follow-up questions it will turn out
that the two interpretations are completely consistent. For example:

Leader: Jason, what do you mean when you say
that Roger is “so happy”?

Jason: I mean that there is no way he could
have ever expected she would do something like that, when he tried to steal
from her.

Leader: So does Roger understand why Mrs. Jones
is giving him the money.

The
above reveals that Jason’s and Delia’s ideas are not necessarily that
different. But it is equally possible that their ideas are contradictory:

Leader:
Jason, what do you mean when you say
that Roger is “so happy”?

Jason: I mean that he wanted the shoes really
bad. But he got caught and thinks

he’s
going to jail, but instead he gets the shoes anyway. It couldn’t have worked
out better for him.

Leader: So does Roger understand what Mrs. Jones
is doing?

Jason: Yes. He understands that she is an
incredibly nice lady and she wants himto have the shoes.

The
point is that students often decide whether they agree or disagree before they
have taken time to fully understand and reflect on what their classmates mean
by what they say. This is an opportunity for the leader to slow things
down and ask follow-up questions to encourage students to clarify their ideas
and carefully consider their responses to the ideas of others.

So
when Jason first says that Roger doesn’t say thank you because he is so happy
and Delia says she disagrees because she thinks Roger is confused, the leader
can ask follow-up questions such as these:

·Jason, can
you tell us what you mean when you say Roger is so happy?

·Delia, what
do you mean by confused?

·Anyone, is
there anything in Jason’s response that is different from your idea?

·Did anyone
use a similar or different way to talk about Roger's feelings?

·Does anyone
want to ask Jason a question about what he has just said?

Students
sometimes confuse ideas with the words used to convey them. The same idea can
often be expressed with very different words, words that might even seem to be
contradictory. Conversely, very different ideas can sometimes be expressed in a
way that makes them sound very similar. Here is one final example:

Leader:
Why can’t Roger say ‘Thank you, M’am’ at the end of the story?

Jason: He’s completely surprised.

Delia: I agree, he’s shocked.

Leader: Delia, can you tell us why you think
Roger is shocked?

Delia: He knows that he did something really,
really bad to this lady. So there is no way that she should ever be nice to
him.

Leader: And Jason, is that what you mean when
you say she is “completely surprised”?

Jason: I’m not sure. I think he’s surprised
that he’s going to get the shoes after all.

Leader: Delia, is your idea about whether he is
going to get the shoes?

Delia: Not really. It’s more about Mrs. Jones
and what she is doing.

When
students have fallen into rhythms and patterns of discussion that suggest they
are not listening to one another very carefully, elevate the expectations and deepen the interaction by
asking follow-up questions that encourage attentive listening.

Mike Wolfkiel is a Senior Training Instructor for the
Great Books Foundation. He has an MA in philosophy and a BA in philosophy and
religious studies from Marquette University. And to the delight of his
crabgrass and the dismay of his tennis game, he spends his spare minutes trying
to write fiction.